The long-awaited final Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) regulations have arrived and, while much analysis still needs to be done, the US Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provided welcome relief on a number of key issues for the asset management industry.

That being said, significant implementation challenges still remain for the asset management industry and substantial work must be undertaken through the course of 2013 in order for asset managers to be compliant by January 1, 2014. Failure to undertake the necessary tasks in 2013 can expose investment managers to a variety of business and investor relation risks.